Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones announces that the Sheriff’s Office Victim Assistance Program will be hosting this area’s annual Recognition of Victim Advocacy Services Community Awareness Event tomorrow, Friday, April 15, 2011, from noon until 2 pm in the lobby of the Government Services Center, 315 High Street, in Hamilton. The event is designed to recognize all local area victims’ advocates throughout the municipal and Common Pleas court systems of Butler County, and to increase community awareness of their programs and services, letting crime victims know they have a voice in court processes as well as support groups to guide them throughout the proceedings and beyond.

This year’s speakers at the event include Cindy Kuhr, Ohio Attorney General’s Office Victim Advocate Specialist, Etta Caver, Professor of Family Studies and Social Work at Miami University (and a victim advocate herself), and Anne Lucas, Attorney for Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio. This event is one of several similar programs being held this week throughout Ohio and the United States in support of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which ends Saturday.

Sheriff Jones is very supportive of the Victim Assistance Program. “Victims often feel like they are victimized twice,” said the Sheriff. “First, they are victims of the initial crime and then they face it all over again during criminal trials and subject themselves to being cross-examined by defense attorneys. These victims need to know they have advocates willing to help them through this process to make it as easy as possible to help put the bad guys away.”